


The Warning

by SaltyWords (agent4hire22)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s10e20 Angel Heart, First Kiss, Hurt Castiel, Love Confessions, M/M, Mark of Cain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 15:22:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3855544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent4hire22/pseuds/SaltyWords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’ve become a virus<br/>Just killing off his host<br/>We’ve been watching you with all of our eyes<br/>And what you seem to value most</p>
<p>Your time is tick tick ticking away…</p>
<p>~"The Warning"<br/>Nine Inch Nails</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Warning

**Author's Note:**

> 10x20 episode Coda  
> Look! I wrote a coda! *rubs hands together*
> 
> Named after the NIN song in the summary.  
> **EDITED: For typos and additions** 5/01/15

Castiel pulled the Continental into the Bunker’s garage and threw it in park. He sat back and looked at the Impala, now cold and dark. Sitting in the damp night air like a dormant storm, waiting for the key to tic into the ignition to roar back to life.

The Winchester’s had gotten in a while ahead of him.

Shortly after the cab drove off with Claire inside, Dean had pulled the keys into his palm and shouted “see-ya,” across the parking lot. Cas watched the cab go, but felt the absence of the Impala as it pulled away kicking gravel and dust up in its wake.

He’d waved at Sam. Sam had waved back. But, Dean just drove. No second look.

Castiel remembered Sam’s advice to him.

_You being there for her, even if she thinks she doesn’t want you to be there for her, that’s good. For both of you._

They’d been talking about Claire, of course, but not really. Really it was about Dean. Because it was always about Dean. And there was no one else to acknowledge the cold-shoulder Cas was catching if not Sam.

Cas pulled his coat into his body and popped the door open, sliding his legs out easily. He felt tired. He wasn’t tired. Couldn’t get tired, actually, with his grace restored, but his mind kept poking at all the old human feelings he remembered being so overwhelmed with as a human, or while his grace was failing him. He almost thought this grace was, if he’d not known any better.

  
  


He slipped into the bunker and maneuvered the dark halls expecting to find Sam curled over his laptop, the iridescent light of the screen illuminating him in a blueish artificial glow, but the rooms were quiet. Cas tucked his head and trudged to the kitchen, chasing the tail of light spilling from over the oven. He stopped short as he rounded the corner and found Dean poking futilely at his phone screen, tracing at the colored dots moving around a square. He glanced up, then back down again.

“Hello,” Cas said. His voice sounded too loud in the gratuitously still night.

“Hey.”

Cas glanced to the hallway and seriously considered retreating, leaving Dean to his personal time.

“You gonna sit down or just stand there like a wierdo?”

“Thank you for helping with Claire today,” Cas offered instead, with a stiff shifting of weight.

Dean glanced back up passively and shrugged. “Yeah, man. You know it. She’s a good kid. Gonna be fine with Jody, probably best she’s been in a long time.”

Cas nodded, but was sure Dean didn’t see. “I only regret her losing her mother.”

“Yeah. It’s rough. No doubt about that.”

Dean pushed out from the table, pocketed his phone and brushed past Cas, barely slowing enough to plant a quick pat on his shoulder, and likely only because Cas was in the way of the door. He strode quickly into the shadowed war room and Castiel tailed after him, suddenly stuffed with urgency. Suddenly unreasonably and momentarily afraid that this was going to be how he remembered Dean: quick half-friendly pats and awkwardly avoided eye contact.

“Dean.”

Dean looked like he wasn’t going to slow, at the last moment deciding to, he turned around. “Headed to bed, Cas. What’s up?”

“It’s not easy to lose anyone,” Cas said lamely. “Especially when it’s family.”

Dean glanced around the room, barely fighting the irritated glassiness in his eyes. “Yeah. I know it better than most, buddy.”

“I’m afraid what it might be like to lose you.” 

Cas admitted it to Dean’s shoes. He couldn’t seem to raise his eyes enough. He was afraid of the gaze looking back at him, that the heartlessness would be there.

Dean was quiet. His feet shuffled uneasily. “Cas, you survived for Millennia without me. It’s different. You’ll be just fine when I’m gone.”

Castiel felt a sickness roll in his stomach. He licked his lips and frowned, walked tentatively to Dean, stopped just short of him. “I understand a human can _survive_ without kidneys,” he said. “They can technically _survive_ without a heart. But, they do not truly live unless they have those things.” The words filtered clunkily out of him.

Cas stole a glance at Dean and saw his mouth working on something to say to break the tension. He saw his eyebrows bend into the familiar deflective _W_ shape they always did when he was going to say something snide.

He didn’t disappoint.

“You trying to say I’m your kidn--”

“You’re my heart,” Cas said before he had time to rethink it.

Dean’s lower lip quivered, tucked under his teeth, disappeared into his mouth as he bit at it nervously. “You’re not a human, Cas. You don’t need a heart.”

And that hurt. Castiel’s eyes fell away. He searched the front of Dean’s green button-up and nodded. “Your opinion of me didn’t seem to change that much when I was.”

He felt the anger bubbling inside of him as he remembered it, the disappointment that had almost swallowed him at the time. He felt it now inside of him, rising like the midnight tides, hoping to wear Dean down like rocks to sand.

He heard Dean’s breath catch hold in his chest. Then, the thick swallow that followed it.

“You can keep pushing me away if you’d like,” Cas continued meeting Dean’s gaze again. Holding it. Humming off the old strength kicking fresh inside of him, his grace beginning to take hold in all the familiar places, as if it had been waiting. “That’s your choice. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for you whether you like it or not, do you understand?”

“I’m sick of being your mission.”

“You used to be, yes,” Cas nodded. His jaw worked forward as he sensed the power in the room shift in his favor. “A long time ago I was tasked with raising your battered and abused soul from Hell. That was all I was supposed to do, Dean. Raise you. But something about you pierced me. Burrowed inside of me.” He took a step closer, the heat of Dean’s body colliding with him. “You bled red into my blue energy,” he whispered. “You changed my color.” His eyes bounced between Dean’s, momentarily ravenous before he pulled it away. “So, yes. You’re right. I’m not human. But I’m not an angel anymore either. And I haven’t been one for a very long time.”

Cas reached a hand up, hovering above Dean’s chest, already so close, but so afraid to break that imposed barrier. His fingers twitched like he was going to pluck a button on Dean’s shirt, or brush his fingertips along Dean’s sternum, but he dropped away without doing either.

Dean blinked slowly. His breath struggled out of him as his palms brushed against the wall Cas had him backed into. The tendons in his tensed neck stood illuminated in the shadows. 

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Castiel couldn’t tell if it was a denial of his feelings or an apology. His expression was too flat to sway him either way.

“Please don’t be,” Cas said. “You can’t undo it. I’m not asking you to try. I simply want you to understand why I’m here. Because you did that for me. You turned me purple, Dean. In a sea of blue, I was the only purple thing.”

His eyes swept over Dean’s face, cataloged the shadows that stretched across his cheeks and cut under his chin sharpening the line of his jaw. The way Dean’s full lips were pulled tight against his teeth, tucked in under the edge of them. The way his jaw trembled and his eyes stayed still. Almost as if he were afraid to move them, afraid to search the face in front of him. Afraid to find the answers that were worn plain for him to have.

Dean was terrified.

“Cas,” he choked. “Don’t. I can’t.”

“I’m not asking anything of you,” Castiel replied. He didn’t move. He didn’t retreat or back up. He wanted Dean to confront it. “You need to know. I would do anything for you. But, that way you were looking at me, before? That wasn’t Dean. That was the Mark.”

He reached a hand up again, fervor unbridling as he slapped it against Dean’s chest. Pushing him against the wall with a thud.

“And I won’t leave you to be eaten by that thing. So I will be right here. I will help you fight it in whatever way I can. Even if it’s just to remind you of who you are. Or what good you’ve done.”

In that moment, Cas ached being so close to him. He wanted to see Dean’s smile, feel his energy relax. Watch him fall back into himself, if he could. The heat of Dean’s body mingled against Cas’, fingering dirty thoughts into his mind as his grace thrummed beneath his skin. As the power of his words brought Dean back to him, ever so slightly.

_You’re responsible,_ he tried to scream. _I want you. I love you. I didn’t live until I met you. Please understand what it means to me. What you mean to me._

“Cas, let me go.” Dean’s voice was strangled with fear and warning. His throat bobbed, struggling against a growl.

Cas blinked, his eyes darting to Dean’s chest, then following the folded arc of his arms. He realized Dean was desperately grasping the Mark. His knuckles white, his hand balled in a fist. A gleam of sweat on his brow caught the light from the kitchen. Cas backed up a step, dropped his hand away, frowned and watched the audible sigh of relief as Dean gained space.

“Is that what this is about?” Cas asked suddenly. “You’re afraid you might hurt me?”

“I know I will,” Dean admitted to the darkness. His eyes squeezed shut as breath huffed in and out of him, his shoulders bobbing against the wall, his body shivering as he struggled to contain himself.

Castiel’s stomach sank. He took another step back, suddenly afraid for Dean. Not of him, but for him. For the immediately present pain he seemed to be in. Which Cas was apparently causing.

The rift between them, it would seem, was by neither of their choices. The Mark commanded it. The Mark controlled the distance Dean could get to another person. It wasn’t allowing him that peace, that touch of comfort or humanity. It wasn’t allowing him love.

Cas felt the burn of tears in his eyes and was surprised. Though he wasn’t without feeling entirely, he usually wasn’t swayed to extremes. But seeing Dean, understanding the complete breakdown that was happening in him, it tore a hole in Cas’ chest. It ripped the grace from his marrow.

Castiel was suddenly nothing. He could do nothing. He was powerless. Meaningless.

“What does it do to you?” he asked feebly, feeling the intention choke in his throat as a tear slipped down his cheek.

Dean clenched his jaw and opened his eyes. Looked back at him. His expression flashing somewhere between hate and love, his internal struggle so palpable, Cas was sure he could sieve his fingers through it if he just reached out.

“Horrible… bad things,” Dean said. His hand ticked up at his face, wiped the sweat away from his temple. “Blood, and rage, and death.” He groaned, looked away. Ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. “A snuff film complete with sounds and smells and...desires.”

“What kinds of desires?”

Dean shook his head. Grunted and slid away from the wall, away from Cas. Even the thought of speaking them out loud seemed to light him on fire.

“It might help you to tell someone about them. The thoughts.”

“Dude, no.” Dean waved his hands out in front of him, fidgeted at the back of his neck as he tried to flee to the kitchen.

“Is running from them working?” Castiel spat following close behind.

Dean heeled around, almost clocked into Castiel’s face as he grabbed the back of his neck, the tips of his fingers digging into Cas’scalp, fisting a clump of his hair. “I don’t know. Are you still alive?” he asked imperiously.

Cas’ mouth clacked shut, surprised and disquieted by the red flare in Dean’s eyes. How quickly he turned. How roughly he held onto Cas. How close their faces were again, breathing into each other's space. Cas could feel Dean’s heart thundering in his chest. He could _hear_ it from where he stood.

“Are you scared right now?” Cas whispered. “Or excited?”

The tightrope dance of glances raised Cas’ heart in time with Dean’s, the musical melody of precipice. The electrical adrenaline in the air between them prickled his skin. The heat rolling from Dean’s body sunk into Cas, settled into his core.

Dean was quiet. A deathly pause. The kind of void of sound in nature before natural disaster. just Dean’s methodical breathing, plodding heart, and cold stare.

Cas reached a hand up, slid it slowly along Dean’s arm. Kept firm eye contact. He felt the rough denim of Dean’s jacket end and his fingers slipped onto Dean’s skin. Skirted over the hair and freckles. Felt the raised veins toward his wrist, the popped finger bones in the back of his hand. He stopped at Dean’s fingers, laced his tips in between them and pried them out of his hair. His eyes didn’t move from Dean’s as Dean’s face changed suddenly from a simmering menace to moderated discomfort. Cas wrenched his wrist back, turned Dean’s arm and forced him to his knee. Castiel’s grace thrummed in his body. He felt his eyes glow hot, then power back. Just a quick flash to Dean. A piquing reminder.

“I’m not as fragile as you seem to think I am,” he said with a graveled pull. He leaned forward into Dean, let their lips brush, a feathery hinted connection as he dropped a knee to level with him, his trench coat skimming the bunker floor. “You shouldn’t be so sure you’ll hurt me.”

He heard a whine escape from Dean just before Dean jerked forward, smacking their lips together rough and hard. Cas released Dean’s wrist and pawed both hands into the sides of his head, feeling the soft brush of his short hair against his finger pads. A gasp escaping his own mouth. Dean clawed at the sides of Cas’ neck, Cas’ skin raising and burning with long red scratches. They panted into each other as their lips wet with each other’s tongues. Their bodies rolling together, as they aligned like planets in a shared gravitational pull.

“Why do you do this to me?” Dean grieved, clawing through Castiel’s hair, at his coat, his tie, his throat again. His voice was weak, thick, choked, and timid. The sound of his lips almost louder than his words. A stark contrast to the rough, rigid movements of his hands and fingers. Of his teeth on Castiel’s lips.

Cas wasn’t sure if Dean was trying to pull him apart or absorb him. He didn’t care. He breathed Dean in, tasted him. Smelled the dark hops of the beer he’d finished before Cas arrived. The faded stench of his cheap soap from his morning shower. The dried sweat still clinging to his skin from the fight with the Gregori in the barn. Then his own blood, as Dean’s teeth cut into him, jaw shivering, then backing away and sucking at Castiel with a pull of his lips.

“I can’t help it,” Cas admitted, adrenaline and love and lust blending together into a thick, caked batter of lost moments. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

Dean whined again. Gasped in a sharp breath. Kissed Cas harder. Sobbed.

Cas felt his cheeks wet with Dean’s tears, tasted the bright saltiness of them on his lips, felt the sting of the bleeding skin on his neck as Dean struggled to control the Mark’s impulses.

“You’re afraid to break me?” Cas whimpered into the side of his face, against his forehead. Through a desperate lingering kiss to his temple. “Then, please don’t leave me.”


End file.
